


Gently Down the Stream

by sayonide



Category: RWBY
Genre: Adam Taurus Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Faunus still exist, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rowing, as he does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide
Summary: A hand slammed down on the table in front of where she'd been standing."You took our chocolate milk."OrThievery, and the things that can result from it.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose, Ilia Amitola & Ruby Rose, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> they're sorted as teams are pre-uni/unofficially;
> 
> huntsman academies are the equivalent of comp teams, combat schools are int, we just assume everyone's above dev
> 
> also weight classes don't exist the same as they do here because fuck that

A hand slammed down on the table in front of where she'd been standing, and Blake glanced up to meet bright purple eyes. 

"You took our chocolate milk."

Blake blinked at her -- wearing the green and black of Beacon, she noted -- before smirking and lifting her carton of chocolate milk up to her lips.

"Nope!" She responded cheerfully. Those purple eyes glanced down and glared at her hand as she took a long sip. "No idea where you got that from."

"You don't even have chocolate milk in your own tent!" The other girl protested. Blake glanced over at Ilia, who watched them with no small bit of amusement.

" _Did_ I take their milk?" She asked Ilia. "Because I don't seem to remember taking it."

Ilia shrugged with just about the most innocent look Blake had ever seen on her. "Nope, no memory of that. Did you take their milk? I don't think you took their milk." Blake took another sip of the carton of milk in her hands. "Yeah. No idea what happened to their milk," Blake said to her.

The purple-eyed girl's mouth opened, but before she could say anything, another girl pushed her way out of the crowd of the Haven kids and put a hand on her arm. When she turned around, the new redhead girl nodded towards where Beacon's tent was. "We're up in 30 minutes," she said.

Purple eyes looked like she was going to argue, before seemingly changing her mind and giving the two one last glare and slipping away behind the redhead, who waved to Blake and Ilia before following her into the crowd.

The second they left the line of sight from the Haven tent, Ilia collapsed onto a chair and wheezed out a laugh. "They're in the fucking _heavyweight_ race. Blake, you're going to get our asses kicked, what the _fuck_." Blake sputtered, almost spitting out the chocolate milk (that yeah, she'd absolutely stolen from Beacon's tent).

"Was I supposed to know that before I took their milk?"

"You _could_ have waited until they were mid-race!"

Blake glanced at the Beacon tent again, where no one seemed to have been paying any attention to them, and gave Ilia a helpless shrug. "It's a bit late now, I'm already done the carton, unless you want to piss them off more and put the empty carton back in it's place." Ilia perked up a little and glanced over as well, and Blake rolled her eyes and set the empty carton down. "You can do it if you want, but I'm not getting my ass beat double by them."

"Coward."

"You... You saw them too, right. That first girl was, like, 6'0 tall," she said flatly, and Ilia just gave her a weak grin.

"Yeah... Definitely noticed. Definitely would provoke."

Of course. Blake just sighed and reached over to pat her shoulder. "You're hopeless," she said. She picked the carton of milk back up, threw it away, and started off. If she had to have been stuck there, might as well watch the race. Before she moved out of sight, though, she turned back to face Ilia and called out, "Don't do anything to piss them off more while I'm gone!"

"I absolutely will," Ilia responded, before they split up enough for the crowd to press in between them.

* * *

"Didn't dad always say sharing was caring?"

" _Sharing_ ," Yang stressed. "Not _giving up your choccy milk_ to some _Haven kid_ who stole it _right out of your tent while your back was turned._ "

Ruby simply shrugged at her. "Sharing it to someone in need who borrowed it without your noticing?"

"If Haven doesn't supply them with hydration, that's not my problem," Yang said. "It's Haven, someone accuses them of cheating every single regatta I've been to and all of the ones I haven't, and there's nothing that leads me to believe they didn't. They could've asked for the milk, and chose not to." 

"Would you have given them the milk, though?"

She paused then, and thought about the two girls she'd confronted earlier. They didn't have that same air of arrogance as those dicks in the quad, Aluminum, Diamond, Aidan, and Fire, or something. And they were both clearly fucking with her about the chocolate milk, but neither had seemed like genuine assholes.

But they both had chosen to go to Haven, and so maybe Ruby had a point. Once she had seen the black and bronze, she probably would have refused them anyway, but she wasn't about to admit it.

So without a word about the question, Yang pulled her shirt on and twisted to look at Ruby. "Next time," she announced, "I'm keeping a close watch on those two."

Ruby sighed. "Sure. What about when you're down in the water, though?"

"I'll have Weiss do it."

"And if she's coxxing during that?"

Yang paused for a moment, clearly having not thought about that. "Then... You can do it?" She tried, and Ruby blinked at her. 

"...Signal races different groups at the same time, what if we're up together too?"

Yang huffed and whipped out her pants harder than was probably necessary. "I don't know, Ren?"

"Ren is..." Ruby paused then. "No, wait. Yeah, Ren works, but wouldn't he be more focused on Nora than keeping away a couple Haven kids?"

Yang shrugged and zipped up her pants fully. "I'll get Nora to make friends, then. Then he'll keep an eye on them."

She threw her bag over her shoulder and motioned for Ruby to get up, which she did, albeit slightly hesitantly. "Wouldn't... I mean, wouldn't that mean you can just befriend them and tell them to stop?

""Obviously not," Yang said, rolling her eyes and only half joking. "Nora can befriend anyone. I can't do that, especially with those guys."

Ruby shrugged. "So then I'll do it, I'll make friends with them and tell them to stop taking the milk and whatever else they did."

Yang turned around, ready to laugh it off as the two just messing around with each other again, but balked when she fully saw Ruby's expression. 

"No."

Ruby tilted her head at her and glared. "What do you mean, no? I can be friends with them."

"No."

"I- Yang, that's more friends for me, and more milk for Beacon!"

"They're not going to be your friends the way you want them to, Ruby," she warned. "You're more than welcome to try, but I'll be here for you to fall back on when you realize."

"They can't all be that bad," Ruby said with a roll of her eyes, and pulled open the car door. Silent, Yang just started up the engine. If Ruby wanted to learn things firsthand, then she was welcome to try.

* * *

The next practice they had, there was someone watching them. Blake had glanced up while waiting for a free space to put down the boat, and a small red shape was sitting near the entrance of the boathouse, staring down at them. It wasn't unusual to have some kid sitting nearby watching, but what was unusual was that when she looked up again during their water break over an hour later, it was still there, in that same position. She wondered, briefly, if it was just a jacket that someone had left on a rock, before whoever was there apparently saw her staring and reached up to wave.

Not just a jacket, then. Hesitantly, she raised a hand and waved back, watching as the figure shot up both arms in celebration.

Ilia laughed from behind her. "Another kid who's gonna talk about how awesome rowing looks and then never join when they realize what an erg is? Or just someone who's going to brag about being faster than the _big kids_ because they can outrun our boat?" Blake let out a _pfft_ (Ilia was _right_ , as annoying as it was) and promptly pushed the kid out of her mind for the next sprint. They were in a public area; things like that happened.

When she left the boathouse, though, what she didn't expect was for the short kid in red to shoot up and stick out an arm.

"Hi!! I'm Ruby!"

Blake stopped short and stared at her in confusion. Ilia, still rifling around in her bag, bumped into her while walking up from the ramp and make a noise of confusion. 

"Hi?" Blake tried, and the girl -- Ruby -- just continued standing there with her hand outstretched.

"Hey!"

From behind her, Ilia put a hand on her shoulder to lean over. "What's happening?" She questioned, and Blake shrugged, never taking her eyes off of Ruby.

Finally, Ruby seemed to get that she wasn't going to get her hand shaken, and pulled it back to scratch at her neck. "Well, my sister was talking about you guys -- I mean, Haven, not you guys specifically, but maybe I don't know I didn't ask her details -- and so I told her I was going to be friends with someone from Haven because she was planning to have someone else do it to assert dominance or whatever and she didn't believe that I could, so now I'm here because I have to be to prove her wrong. Also, I saw you guys race last week and it was really cool, I'm from Signal so they have us watch the comp teams sometimes."

Blake turned back to Ilia, who just shrugged before saying, "Hey, I'm Ilia. So why are you all the way over here if you go to Signal? Why not Beacon?" 

Ruby stared at her for a second, before responding. "Because... My sister said Haven specifically?"

"She did mention that," Blake muttered, and turned back to Ruby. "Well, then, I'm always happy to prove someone wrong. Blake. What's her beef with us?" 

Ruby shuffled and looked down before glancing back up, and she said, "Uh... She said someone took Beacon's chocolate milk out of their tent, and I guess you guys would know how they feel about their chocolate milk..." 

At that, she felt Ilia's hand suddenly get a lot stiffer on her shoulder, and she knew the same thing was running through their minds. _Oh, fuck_. 

Ilia laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, hah, you don't touch someone else's milk, it's basically sacred."

Ruby looked absolutely ecstatic at getting a semi-positive response from the two, and Blake took the moment to step forward and tell her, "We have to go soon. Got any way of contact, or should we just show up to Signal's next practice?"

"Probably not the best idea, my sister's going to be there," Ruby admitted, and pulled out her scroll. "You can give me your number, or I can give you mine, so that we can stay in contact that way, though," she suggested, and Blake nodded. She input her information, and handed the scroll back. "I can forward any messages to Ilia," she explained, "But we really have to go now. It was nice meeting you, Ruby."

"You too!" The two of them slipped out with a final wave to Ruby, and quietly walked to the bus stop before Ilia announced, "Fuck."

Blake nodded. "Fuck," she agreed.

"So what, do we just... Avoid her sister forever? While talking to Ruby?"

"Well we can't just shut her down," Blake protested, and Ilia looked at her in pure despair.

"We can't keep talking to her and end up meeting her sister, either!"

She sighed and looked down at her scroll, almost expecting to see a message from Ruby already. "Look, we can deal with that when it happens. For now, we help Ruby prove her wrong."

* * *

Ruby nearly skipped the entire way to Beacon's boathouse, only stopping because skipping was nowhere near as fast as biking, and she needed to tell Yang about what had happened at Haven. Immediately.

When she got there, Yang was already waiting outside talking to some others, and Ruby screeched to a stop in front of them before leaping off of her bike. 

"Yang!" She hollered, about a foot in front of her sister's face. "Yang, look what I got! Look!" 

Yang reached out to grab her arm, waving around her scroll, which was opened to the contacts page. "Woah, hey, woah, slow down! What am I looking?"

"A Haven rower's number! _You_ said I couldn't do it!" Ruby crowed, and Yang's expression almost immediately hardened.

"I never said you couldn't do it," she corrected. "I said you _shouldn't._ Delete that number, Ruby. Now."

Ruby grabbed her scroll back and looked at her, confused.

"What do you mean I shouldn't? They were friendly. Why are you controlling my friends?"

"I'm not-" Yang cut herself off with a sigh, thinking over her words and restarting. "I'm not trying to control your friends. I'm _trying_ to keep you from getting _hurt_."

"Getting hurt from what?" She snapped. "From socializing? I remember how those times went before, but that doesn't mean I don't get to have friends now!"

Yang glanced over to the group she'd been talking to initially, but they were all getting started on another conversation. Nora looked over at her, turned to look at Ruby and shrugged at her, and then turned back to the others, and Yang sighed.

"You _have_ friends, though," Yang reasoned. " _Good_ ones. Who clearly care about you. Why are you searching out Haven kids? To prove me wrong? You can do that by getting out of Signal. This is just the way that's going to leave you with the same amount of friends you started with and more experience with shitty people than you need."

Ruby shoved her scroll back into her pocket forcefully, and glared down to the ground. "They were _nice_ ," she muttered. There was no way Yang was anything but unfairly biased. Blake and Ilia had been happy to help her, and neither of them had seemed like they had any bad intentions. If anything, they looked like they were scared of something happening when she'd mentioned her sister went to Beacon.

Still, though, she nodded, muttered out a "fine," and then, when they got into the car, slid into the backseat and pulled her scroll back out.

_**Ruby >> **are you gonna be there next month? _

_**Blake >> **the regatta at 6 am that's 2 hours away from either of our boathouses? yes._

_**Ruby >> **oh so am i! my sister thinks i gave up talking to u though so can we talk during her race?_

_**Blake >> **sure, we can come over to your tent. when?_

_**Ruby >> **uhhhhhh i don't remember the schedule but i'll text when she leaves_

With a satisfied smile, Ruby put her scroll away and leaned back into the seat. Yang: tricked. Blake: contacted. Ruby: up 2 more friends, and seeing them next month for sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first half of this was already posted i just was trying to update and deleted the entire chapter by accident
> 
> second half is completely new though so ig it works out?

Ilia leaned over in her seat to peer at the phone when the notification hit, very pointedly _not_ breathing in the warmth that wafted over her as she stretched over Blake's shoulder. 

"Next month, huh?" She sighed out, and Blake nodded. "What are the chances we can show up to Signal next week anyway?"

"You want to show up to Signal and potentially see those two again?" 

Ilia snorted and pressed her head against Blake's shoulder, _definitely not needing to force her lungs to learn how to work again._ "Well, maybe not that part, but it'd be cool to not have to wait a month. Ruby was cool."

Blake grinned hard enough that Ilia could hear it in her voice, nudging at the head resting on her shoulder. "You know, we have her number, and it's not like there are that many schools on Patch. We could probably see her at lunch someday."

She sighed, rolling her head to droop it further against Blake. Sure, they could, but if Ruby got caught by her sister, if either of _them_ got caught with her, how would she react? 

It took effort to not shift to red again, this time not out of embarrassment at being pressed up against Blake. Ruby was nice. Young. _Innocent_ , she thought, and remembered when she and Blake were that innocent. And who ruined it.

"Yeah, I guess we could."

Blake nudged at her head again, and _Ilia very much did not care about when_ her voice dropped to concern. 

"Hey," she mumbled. "You're not usually like this about some kid. What's up?"

She shrugged, and hoped that Blake could feel it in their positions. "It was a long practice. And it's weird, helping some kid make _friends_ behind her sister's back. Reminds me of how- you know. How Adam got, before he got moved up. I don't like thinking about her in that position. I mean, Adam was only there at training and whenever we got dragged into meeting up, and Ruby's gotta _live_ with-"

She cut herself off and glanced up in concern when Blake's shoulder tensed.

"...Yeah," she muttered, staring straight ahead.

Ilia pushed herself upright then, enough to press her cheek onto her friend's shoulder. "Are _you_ okay? Should I not have brought him up?"

"We see him four times a week," Blake said, and rolled her eyes (weakly, but Ilia didn't comment on that). "Mentioning him after a one of those isn't going to do anything, don't worry. I want to see Ruby again, too, just to spite her sister."

"Yeah," Ilia muttered. But a carton of chocolate milk was nowhere near serious enough to essentially ban someone from making friends with people from the only other boathouse in Patch. For Ruby to be sneaking around like that, it was either some major miscommunication and anxiety, or something was up with her sister.

"Text her anyway?" She asked Blake. "Just to... I don't know. Not leave her hanging and prove her sister right."

"Why don't you do it, then?" Blake pulled her scroll back out, and dropped it in her lap. 

Shit. Well, alright. Ilia pulled up the recent messages and started typing.

**Blake >> ** _so what are the chances you end up racing at the same time as your sister?_

-

"Twist around real quick, Penny?" Yang told her, and dropped down to sit in front of the laptop. "No, with your feet planted."

She winced at the low, crunching noise that sounded from the speakers. "Aw, yeah, that's not a good sound. You shouldn't be crunching like that."

"I've been doing all the stretches as father and Dr. Oobleck have instructed!" Penny chirped, somehow still without the whine that someone at her age with a crunching back would be expected to have.

"I know, Penny. Sometimes things don't happen like we plan, but it's alright. When are you able to meet him again?"

"In two weeks from today!"

Yang let out a hum as she checked the calendar. "Next time you'll be racing isn't for another month at the least. You're already doing a lot better than before, so who knows? You might make it on by then."

Penny squeaked in excitement, and bounced on the spot. "Hopefully! I look forward to seeing you and Friends Ruby and Jaune and Pyrrha and the others by then regardless of my spine!"

With a laugh, Yang waved at her and closed the video call after saying their goodbyes. Talking to her always lifted Yang's mood, and she was glad that Penny was recovering quickly from the incident from months back.

Speaking of the incident, though, she thought more about how excited Ruby had seemed, waving her scroll up in the air with some Haven kid's number. As if it was an accomplishment. 

Ruby had given up far too quickly to have been telling the truth. 

It might not have been in very good form to be so convinced that her little sister was lying, but she'd essentially _raised_ her. Yang knew what it took to get Ruby to let go of something, and it was never as easy as just asking. Something was up, but she reassured herself that there was no way Ruby was going to get hurt the way Penny had. Signal was based in the same boathouse as Beacon, but their rivalries rarely crossed. The last she'd heard, there was something going on between them and Pharos, but it was much friendlier than what Haven was capable of.

Friendly. That was what Ruby needed, and so that was what Yang would latch on to. She'd give Ruby her space; she _had_ to. But when it came down to it, she couldn't let her get hurt because of some comment Yang had made as a joke. So she nodded to herself, steeled her resolve, and walked into Ruby's room.

Ruby laid feet up against the wall, back pressed against her bed, and laughing at something on her phone. For a moment, it was nice to just watch and enjoy her little sister being happy, but when she stepped in and hit the same creaking floorboard she'd always used to alert Ruby that someone was there, Ruby slammed her scroll down and shot up.

"I wasn't doing anything!" 

Alright, suspicious. But Ruby was skittish on a good day, so she didn't press on that, choosing to lean on the doorframe and smirked. "What? Too embarrassed to let me see you messaging Vomit Boy?"

 _Good move_ , she congratulated herself when Ruby tossed her scroll to the side and went bright red with anger. 

"No! Why would I hide my scroll if I was? You know we talk."

"So you admit you were hiding it?" 

"No! Uh- Yes!... Nes..." Ruby trailed off, ending with a weak grin aimed at Yang, who just sighed and shook her head.

"Ruby, are you talking to the kids from Haven?"

She huffed, and looked away. "Why does it have to mean I was talking to them? What if I was watching porn, huh?"

"..."

"Okay no I wasn't watching porn you're right I wouldn't do that but still!" 

Yang sighed. "Ruby, I wasn't kidding when I told you to drop it, alright? Nothing good is going to happen if you keep trying to talk to them."

Just then, the scroll buzzed, and right as Ruby reached to pick it up, Yang shot out a hand. 

"Don't reply," she gritted out, and after a moment's standoff Ruby shot forward and leapt backwards with her scroll in hand.

At least, she tried. Living 16 years with her had trained Yang to know exactly what she was going to try, and with a hop forward, she plucked the scroll out of Ruby's hand.

**Blake >> ** _really?_

**Blake >> ** _we're just a few minutes apart, then_

"Blake?" She muttered. "And you're trusting him with your- what, your school? Or our _house_?"

"Blake's nice," Ruby whined. "And I'm not stupid, I know where and when she'll be at Haven. And her school, probably, but that's all _she_ knows of _me_ too!"

"You're too goddamn trusting," Yang told her. She tossed the scroll down to Ruby's bed and turned to leave. 

"Just be careful," she warned. "I won't keep you away if they're being cool, but you know that I know how to step in if it's needed. Don't let them make me have to."

-

"I still think this is a bad idea," Ilia muttered as Blake pushed open the café door with a roll of her eyes. 

"She's, like, 15," Blake scolded her, lightheartedly. "What's she going to do? Poop on you?"

Ilia stopped in the doorway, much to the displeasure of everyone inside enjoying the lack of wind, and stared at her in horror.

"Blake, that stops when you're _five_."

Blake blinked. Once. Twice.

"Don't babies stop doing that once they turn one?" She asked, hesitant.

"...No? You're telling me you stopped shitting your pants at one?"

"Well, we were in preschool by five," Blake argued. "I don't think anyone was still in diapers then."

Ilia rolled her eyes and pulled them both inside and onto a seat up against the corner. Dropping her bag down, she dug out her lunch and laptop and set them onto the table.

"We're solving this with the power of the internet," she told Blake with the blankest face she could muster up. "I'm guessing Ruby will want hot chocolate, one of us should probably get drinks to not get kicked out."

Blake nodded and put her bag on the table instead of the chair, pulling out her wallet. "I'll get the drinks, then. Same as usual for you?"

Ilia hummed her agreement, already turned to try and connect to the café internet.

As soon as Blake turned to face the counter, she relaxed and let the pink and red spread over her body. Gods, it has to be illegal for someone to look like _that_. Without the constant distraction and pressure of keeping her skin its neutral colour, it's easier to turn back to her screen and tap in the WiFi password, and then leave the search to load up as she went to get started on homework while waiting.

A few minutes later, a hand tapped her shoulder. Without looking up from her screen, Ilia tabbed over to her search and read out loud, "Babies shit their pants until they're 3 or 4 years old, at which point they finally understand the concept of a toilet."

Instead of the overexaggerated groan that she's already braced herself to _not_ change colours for, though, a high-pitched and hesitant giggle hits her ears. "I mean, I guess that makes sense."

Not the voice she'd expected. Against all her preparations, Ilia's entire body turned pink, and she looked up at Ruby and mumbled out, "Hi, Ruby. Did you see Blake while coming in?"

Ruby bopped her head up and down in agreement. "Yeah, she pointed me over here and said to just sit down. How'd you know I wanted hot chocolate?"

Ilia glanced at her in amusement, noting her near-constant bouncing motion. "Just a hunch," she said.

Too late, she noticed that Ruby was distracting her when she should've been preparing for when Blake inevitably returned and curled over her shoulder. Like just then, causing Ilia to immediately turn back to bright pink.

She ignored Ruby's squeak at the colour change, and glanced up to look at Blake, with her face carefully blanked but ears twitching in amusement.

"Hi," Ilia whispered, and Blake broke out in a smile.

"Hi. You stuck there?" She teased, motioning towards her cheeks, where Ilia knew the scales shone the brightest pink already.

"Shut the fuck up," Ilia whispered affectionately.

"Are you guys dating?" Ruby butted in, with just about the loudest whisper she could probably do.

 _I wish_ , Ilia thought, at the same time that Blake backed up and waved the hand that wasn't holding her tea.

"Hah! No, we're not, sorry about that. How's uh... How's your sister?"

"How are _you?_ " Ilia asked, and nudged Blake with her elbow. Awkward little fucker, she thought, with no small bit of affection.

Ruby just laughed. "Oh, yeah, I'm great, really enjoying that we don't have as many practices as you guys. I can't even imagine being out more than four times a week."

The two of them shuddered at the reminder. "Yeah, not having a great time with the amount of drylands we have to do. Are you being pushed into that much drylands? Or is it just better on your side of the lake in general?"

And with that, their conversation kicked off, and it almost felt like they'd managed to become friends with Ruby through some other means, that they hadn't met solely because her older sister was pissy about her spending time with the people who went to Haven.

Half an hour later, Blake's phone went off with an alarm they'd set beforehand, and the three of them waved their goodbyes, packed up, and left.

As they headed back to their school, though, Ilia realized. Ruby's surprise when she'd changed colour in front of her. Sure, she had a less obvious trait than someone like Fennec, but did Ruby even know that Haven was majorly made up of faunus?

What if the purple eyed girl didn't have some grudge against them because someone from Haven shat on her honour or something? If she was just plain racist? Was she angry because they'd taken Beacon's chocolate milk, or because it was Blake, with her ears in plain view, who had been standing there drinking from it?

-

Ruby sprinted back to school as fast as she could, nearly ramming into Yang as she burst through the doors.

"Woah!" She laughed, pressing Ruby back by her shoulders. "Where've you been? No one's seen you all lunch." Ruby shifted a little as she spoke, and glanced away from Yang's eyes.

"Uh, nowhere! We gotta go to class, we're about to be late, let's run! See you after school!"

And with that, she ducked out of Yang's grip and ran, silently cursing herself out for not having an excuse on hand. Now Yang was _extra_ going to be questioning her about where she went!

When she slid into the lab for science class, Jaune leaned over the table.

"So, why was Yang messaging me through lunch?" He whispered, and Ruby reached back to scratch the back of her neck.

"You know how she really, really hates Haven?"

"You _went to join Haven?!_ " Jaune hissed, and she shoved him on the shoulder playfully.

"No! I just wanted to _talk_ to people from Haven and Yang's got some kind of a problem with that!"

"So I... Shouldn't have told her you weren't with me?"

"No Jaune what the heck? Why would she ask you before me? Of course I didn't want her to know where I was?"

"I don't- She's scary!"

She rolled her eyes. "Jaune, she's about as scary as cloning."

"Which feeds into the rich and kills people!"

"It doesn't kill people, it just forces people into ethically questionable decisions."

"Th- What. That's not much better!"

"It is _so much better than murder_ , Jau-"

A quick burst of clapping cut her off, and the two of them spun around to look at the front of the room, where Prof. Oobleck was clapping at that same speed he did everything, before picking his endless thermos of coffee back up. 

"Excellent, excellent. Take note, everyone, Ms. Rose and Mr. Arc have already begun preparations for your unit test. Which, may I remind you, is in precisely six days! However, today isn't the day to work on anything in class. Now, open up your notebooks."

The two of them glanced at each other, eyes full of leftover fear, and turned to start scribbling down as many words as they could catch.

-

She walked home alone as soon as the bell rang. Yang could afford to wait another few minutes. Or hours. Or forever, preferably. 

What she hadn't actually remembered was that Yang owned a motorbike and could travel over twice her walking speed, and so when Ruby stepped into the house, Yang was standing leaning against Ruby's bedroom door.

"So," she starts, conversationally. "Where were you today at lunch that's such a secret you walked the whole way home?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check the time, go rest your eyes if you need. remember to take ur meds today. you're doing incredible.
> 
> listen other than one or two events this fic is going to contain: non-traumatized happy characters, because. Good For The Soul i guess? it make happy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know when you fall asleep with headphones on and wake up to quiet music and have to take a moment to really realize oh yeah that's external i didn't turn into a jukebox

Arms crossed, Yang raised an eyebrow as Ruby immediately paled at the sight of her. With an awkward wave, she tried to slide past, only to be stopped at every angle, Yang's body blocking the doorknob. 

"I'm not going to force you to not talk to people," Yang told her. "But if you were just out with Penny, or Weiss, just say so and I'll step off."

"Why does it matter?" Ruby shot back, and Gods fuck it all, she hated nothing more than pressing down on her little sister like that after all her trouble making friends in the past, but she braced herself anyway and stood firm in the doorway. It's for her own safety, she reminded herself.

"Because I don't want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger." 

"I don't need to be protected from my friends!" She practically yelled, and Yang pressed a hand to her head.

"They're _not_ your friends."

"They seem plenty friendly to me!"

"Why are you so determined to trust them?"

"Why are you so determined to- that they're bad people?"

Because they hurt Penny, Yang almost let out, but no. They're older now, it'd been well over a decade, but Ruby was still her baby sister. No matter what. 

"You're going to have to _trust_ me on this, Ruby, have I ever lead you wrong?"

"You can make bad decisions too! I'm almost 16, just let me make my own friends without your _approval_."

"I'm not saying you need my approval!" Yang rolled her eyes. What about this could Ruby just not understand? "I'm saying you need to be careful, because you don't have a good track record with things like this."

"I'm not incompetent."

"I'm not saying you _are_ , but you don't know how Haven is, and you need to ease into, you know, going out and making your own friends."

Ruby threw up her arms and groaned, but slumped a little against the wall she was next to, and Yang almost sighed in relief. "Why can't you just tell me what happened with Haven?"

Yang _did_ sigh now, but for a completely different reason. Protect her, she reminded herself, and explained to Ruby, "Look, some things you're better off not knowing, alright? This is one of those things. It's for your own good."

"I don't want my own good if you're making no sense!" Ruby yelled. "I just want to know the truth, and you're not giving me anything."

She was getting nowhere with this. So as a last ditch attempt before just using physical force or telling her what happened to Penny, she stood up straight and let out another sigh in what she hoped looked like resignation (which, yes. It sort of was). "Mom did the same thing with me, alright? And I like to thing that if you turned out alright with me raising you, she had to have done something right."

"You're not mom, though," Ruby retorted, something almost like a growl coming out. "It's about time you stopped trying to act like her, because it's not working."

Yang stared back at her, any semblance of a response dying in her throat, and with her sister out of the way, Ruby grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut when she made it inside. 

* * *

Ilia was acting weird. 

They'd both known the circumstances, why they were meeting with Ruby, and Ilia was always the more paranoid of the two. It was what had made her so beneficial to helping the other kids at Haven -- the _White Fang_ , how did neither of them catch onto how stupid of a name it was -- way back. But maybe, through how energetic Ruby always seemed to be, she'd forgotten and had convinced herself that they knew each other through normal reasons. After all, Blake had managed it as well. 

She tried telling herself that it was just hitting her how truly fucked up it was to become friends with some kid out of spite, but it'd been hours, and the _weirdness_ had lasted all through the rest of lunch and their last period.

Without giving herself time for doubt, she nudged Ilia on their walk back to school. 

"You okay?" She asked, and Ilia's scales flashed bright pink before settling back down as she hummed in the affirmative. 

"Just thinking."

"About Ruby?" 

Ilia let out a huff, and nodded, before slowing down in thought. "Do you..."

She paused then, halting completely, and Blake twisted down to peer at her with a questioning hum. 

"Do you think that her sister's just... Straight up racist?"

Blake tilted her head it thought, her ears flopping to the side loosely. "But Ruby's fine with us," she pointed out. "You went bright pink in front of her, and she didn't say anything."

Ilia shrugged. "It's not like it's uncommon for siblings to disagree on something like this. But Ruby was completely ignorant to my trait. Like, _didn't even know I was a faunus_ , and I'd figured she'd at least know that bit about Haven if her sister happened to hate us that much."

"I mean, some of the people on the University team are human..."

A moment passed, the two of them continuing forward as someone brushed past them on the sidewalk with an angry mutter, and Blake hummed in thought. It was a hell of a lot easier for Ilia to pass as a human, and it wasn't like that blonde girl would have actually told someone as bubbly as Ruby that she just hated faunus, right?

But why not? It might not have been racism. because it would have been just as easy to push some narrative onto Ruby about how faunus were more animal than human, and an overall violent and deranged group. Hell, they probably had met the Fang before, whether in practices, at a regatta, or even just walking down the street.

Wait. They had probably _met the Fang before_. 

Before she could properly follow that train of thought, though, a pressure appeared at her right arm, and she looked back to see Ilia gripping it, eyes trained on a café across the street.

"Say, Blake, if I were to pay, how 'bout we head inside for some hot chocolate?"

She laughed, following her over in the direction of the café. "Sure," she replied. "But I can pay for myself and my _tea_."

* * *

It shouldn't have hurt, she told herself an hour later, sitting on the couch. It was just a comment, one that was made after she'd pushed Ruby farther than she should have, kinder than she'd probably deserved. Ruby didn't mean any harm by it, and it shouldn't _have_ done any.

So why had she been sitting there, staring at an empty wall for the past hour? 

Finally, she stood up, and figured that if she was going to sulk, it might as well have been in her bed. It wasn't like she _had_ any reason to be sulking, though. She'd never wanted to try and replace Summer, had never seriously thought that she _could_. Somehow, though, hearing it from Ruby, it dug into her. 

But she wasn't _wrong_. She wasn't being like Summer, not even remotely. No, that was the same as Tai, standing at the door when she got home when she was younger, ready to whale on her for staying out later than he thought she should've been. And every time that had happened, she just got angrier and angrier at him, until she got a job and moved out out of spite, Ruby following along when she stayed close enough to drive to the boathouse and school. 

Fuck. She needed to apologize to Ruby at some point. 

A few minutes after she'd thrown herself down onto her bed to continue her staring at the walls of the house, someone knocked on the door. Before she could say anything, it creaked open and Ruby stuck her head in, clearly nervous. She sat up, fast, and waved Ruby in with an automatic smile.

She shuffled in with her fingers twined together to perch on Yang's bed. "I'm sorry I said that," she rushed. "It's just, I don't know, we started arguing, and then I don't know how to do arguments very well, so I said the first thing on my mind and I thi- I know that it hurt you, an-"

Eyes wide, Yang tossed aside her previous sulking to wrap an arm around her little sister. "Aw, wait, hold on. Pretty sure I'm not the one who taught you to apologize for things you don't have to. That wasn't your fault, I was being unreasonable."

"You mean... You take it back?" Ruby tried, and Yang waved her hand in dismissal. 

"Oh, no, I still don't trust them, and I'll totally send them to the hospital if I'm right," she said, before sending a soft smile down. "But it's alright to make friends. And I can't keep you from trying. So if you want to go and hang out with them, I'd still prefer if you told me but it's cool if you do."

Ruby blinked up at her, and she tried for the reassuring look that she'd always used when they were young. "Really. It's alright if you wanna go out and do something with them. It's shitty of me to try and stop you."

It earned her a smile, and she nearly kicked herself for being so oblivious and building up to the place where Ruby didn't think that a change of heart was genuine. 

When they were younger, one of the only things that Ruby remembered of their mother was her cookies. Chocolate chips, just big enough to overflow both her hands. So when Yang took over for caring for her, her little 6 year old self had told her that the cookies she'd made them were an apology, for when she'd have to leave.

Ruby at the time was angry. Said that no amount of cookies were enough to apologize for not having her mom anymore, even if she only knew Summer by her cookies, cape, and the stories and pictures Yang would show her. 

But she at least believed it. And as she got older, and they both learned how to actually cook, they started using cookies. To show that it was genuine, that they really meant it.

The last time they'd used a cookie was before moving out. And it sure as hell was needed now. So she ruffled Ruby's hair a little, and pulled her along out the door.

"I'm serious," she said. "Apology cookie, yeah? From that café you keep wanting to visit."

Ruby nodded with a slight gasp, but before they made it out the front door, she grabbed onto Yang's sleeve.

"You know what that means, though, right?" She asked. "If you ever meet, you have to be nice. You gotta be nice to them."

She grit her teeth, but if these girls were as nice as Ruby said, and they didn't do anything... 

"Sure," she agreed. "I'll be cool. I promise."

* * *

Hot chocolate. That was all that Ilia wanted. Some hot chocolate. 

But holy shit, the universe really was just trying to mess with her.

They'd been waiting in line, pointing out some things outside, talking about their classes, when the door opened.

See, it was a café, and a damn good one at that. It wasn't unusual for the door to be in constant motion. What _was_ unusual was the soft squeal of a 16 year old calling out her and Blake's names, and then a lower voice muttering, "Them? You befriended _them?_ "

Oh, shit. 

At the same time, the two of them turned around, and Ruby was bouncing over to them with a wave, dragging behind her a taller girl. Blonde hair, dark eyes, and that same glare they'd stared down just a few weeks ago.

From behind her, she heard Blake give a "Hey, Ruby," barely a second before the blonde turned to stare at Ruby incredulously. 

"Out of everyone in this area. Everyone at Haven. And you meet _them_."

Ruby looked up at her in confusion, and Ilia cleared her throat. "Uh, Ruby," she started, nervous. "We were the ones who took Beacon's chocolate milk."

A look of understanding immediately came over her, and she beamed at them. "Well, then you guys can make up here! I can get everything, what are you guys gonna get?"

Ilia glanced up nervously at Ruby's sister, who, to her surprise, was wearing about the same expression, gaze flitting between her and Blake.

"Uh, Rubes, I don't really think that that's the best idea. Let them buy their stuff, we'll get ours, and we all split up, how about that?"

"But I want you guys to be friends too!" Ruby nearly whined, and Blake slipped out from where she'd been behind Ilia, pressing a hand to Ruby's shoulder and squeezing.

"Look, it'd probably be too hard to split the cash anyway, and we don't know each other _yet_. We can postpone this, yeah?"

Ilia shot a grateful look over to her, and the corner of her mouth quirked up a little before she turned back to the blonde girl.

"Hi," she said, holding out a hand. "Blake, and that's Ilia, appointed Ruby-friends," 

A hand came up to meet it, slowly, and Ilia nearly winced at the sight of Blake's hand, squeezed down, and then actually did when Ruby's sister shot Blake a suspicious look. "Yang," she said. "Ruby's older sister."

"Are we going to meet up again next week?" Ruby interjected, and Ilia smiled. For someone who talked to them out of spite, she really was starting to just enjoy Ruby's company. 

Blake apparently felt the same, because with a questioning glance over, she dropped Yang's hand and nodded. "Yeah, same time as today?" 

Ruby grinned and agreed, and when they got the hot chocolate and tea, Ilia waved at them and was promptly dragged out of the store.

Once they were outside, Blake sighed. 

"I really do like Ruby," she commented as they started heading back again. "But hell if I'm spending another second around her sister."

Ilia laughed. "Yeah, I wonder why. Might be the muscles and the _full_ ability to rip us both in half."

Blake bumped her playfully, shoving her to her side of where the road split. "Gods, now I _really_ regret taking the milk," she joked with a slight shudder, and with that, the two of them waved goodbye and parted ways.

When she hit the front door, her phone buzzed.

**Blake >> ** _also, ruby gave me yangs number, and i'm too scared to even add it, so here you go_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whatever you did today. that was enough. you deserve good things.
> 
> you know those people who write up chapters several chapters in advance and have a soli-  
> yeah im posting this right after finishing and literally have about 3 plot points that are going to happen at some point  
> sorry  
> hope you enjoyed anyway


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> winter is coming

True to her word, Yang was alright about Ruby going off to meet the other two whenever they agreed to, which was usually just once a week so it was only four more times before the regatta. And okay, their friendship wasn't exactly built on anything very sturdy, but they were growing closer every week! It wasn't just meeting up to get to know each other to piss off Yang anymore, because Yang knew and she was only a little bit pissed off! 

So when the regatta came, and Ruby was sat in the backseat of a car at four in the morning, she was wide awake and excited to finally see Blake and Ilia _properly_ race.

Well, as long as they didn't end up being scheduled for the same time. 

**_Ruby >> _ ** _wait what time are you guys racing???_  
  
 _ **Blake >> **too early. why?_

_**Ruby >> **so not in the afternoon_

_**Blake >> **unfortunately not._

_**Ruby >>** cool see you then!!!_

She was wide awake and excited to see Blake and Ilia properly race! Unfortunately, though, she couldn't bounce in place because _Yang_ was half asleep, and Ruby couldn't drive, so if she bounced too much then there was the problem that Yang might've gotten startled and threw the wheel to the side, and then that would be bad, because they would get in a car crash and not only miss the regatta but also probably lots and lots of other important things because car crashes were _dangerous_.

Man, now that she was thinking about it, she really should've done her driver's test. But then maybe she'd be bouncing around because Yang wouldn't have been driving, and then the bouncing would send them into a car crash too...

Anyway, she was excited. It wasn't very often that she got to watch a new friend compete, and now there were _two_ of them, who were both going to be rowing together! 

It was mostly because she didn't make new friends very often, but maybe she should, because usually getting up early just to go sign in and then sit in the cold for several hours before finally being able to row was _boring_ and she hated it but now she was excited! 

Two more hours passed about the same way, Yang slowly becoming more awake and preparing for her really early race and Ruby still bouncing in the back seat. Finally, right at the end, they reached the lake. Ruby practically threw herself out of the door and pulled her bag out of the trunk, pausing to accept a pat and a _don't miss your race, have fun_ before tearing down the grass to look for Haven. 

Yang was going up first, so there was time! Way, way more than enough time to run on down to the first spark of a bronze tent and locate her friends. Fortunately, her sense of sight didn't fail her, and she slid to a stop a few feet away from Haven's tent. _Unfortunately_ , there wasn't even black hair in sight. Nothing darker than the standard light brown! And if Blake wasn't there, then Ilia probably wasn't, either, because they had said that they were going to be driving up together.

After a moment of very, very intense thought, she figured that they'd show up eventually, and that boathouse rivalries didn't extend to the lower level teams, and promptly dropped down to sit under a tree near the tent after sending them a message to note where she was.

Before she could fully get settled, a shadow came over her.

"Hi!" It chirped. "Are you looking to join us?"

A boy stood over her, very visibly older than her, with messy blond hair and... Three arms?

No. A tail. A really long tail, gripping the branch above her, holding him up right between her and the sun.

"That's so cool," she whispered, and he cocked his head a little before realizing.

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, look, I can hold more than me with it!" He boasted, and held his arms out with a wiggle of his fingers, and she leaped at the chance. 

She spent nearly half an hour swinging from his arms before a man called over.

"Sun!" He yelled, and the blond boy nearly dropped her in surprise. "You're up in an hour, what the hell are you doing with her?"

The boy -- Sun -- turned to look back at him, glanced at Ruby in confusion, and called back, "Yeah, an hour, I've got my stuff all ready. I got thirty minutes before I gotta head down."

A head of red appeared from behind the tent, and Ruby's first thought was _woah, tall._ Her second thought was _woah. Scary._

The angry red hair reached out to grab Sun's arm, and he hissed out, " _Now_ , Sun. _Quit fucking around_."

Sun swallowed and turned to glance at her, and right at that moment her scroll buzzed. He breathed out in relief -- for what, she had no idea, but sent him a (hopefully) reassuring look anyway -- and nodded at Big Tall Red. 

As they walked off, she checked her scroll, and grinned when she saw the reply from Blake. 

_**Blake >> **got caught up. two more minutes, we'll be right there._

* * *

With one last warning glance, Adam turned and walked away, and the two of them breathed out a sigh of relief at the same time. Blake pulled out her scroll to the old messages from Ruby, and with a final look to where he'd disappeared, she typed out a message. It was far slower than Ilia was used to her typing, though, and when she glanced up, her friend's ears were stiff and still twitching back. After two more minutes of watching her try to type a message and pass it off as just Ruby's texting being hard to decipher, Ilia reached over to pull it off of her hands and gave a quick glance at what was shakily typed out before replying fast enough that Ruby wouldn't question it if she happened to be looking at her scroll at that exact moment.

Which might not have actually been too far off of a thought, because Ruby was replying in less than a second.

_**Ruby >>** cool! im still there but you might wanna run someone was saying one of the mens groups is going in an hour and yangs back already_

_**Blake >>** don't worry, we have until 7:15_

_**Ruby >>** but its 6:40_

_**Blake >>** _ _don't worry_

As she sent it, though, Ilia looked up at the time and it _was_ 6:40, and neither of them were prepared. 

"We gotta run," she breathed, and reached over to bap at Blake's arm. "Blake, we gotta run."

Without waiting for a response, she took off and trusted that Blake would follow her. 

-

They got out fast, not willing to get stuck in the crowd of boats trying to make their way out of the water, and Ilia thanked everything she could think of that they had been placed close enough to the dock to be out and putting the boat down, and the second they were back up to the tents, Blake's scroll started buzzing several times in quick succession, loud. She shot a glance at Ilia in leftover fear from earlier, but broke out in a smile after opening it. 

"Just Ruby," she said, as Ilia absolutely wasn't struggling over how _pretty_ her smile was and how much she wanted to keep that on her face forever-

Nope. She shoved the thoughts away, and raised an eyebrow in return. "What's she saying now?"

Wordlessly, the scroll was shoved in her face.

_**Ruby >>** THAT WAS SO AWESOME !!!!! YOURE SO FAST WHAT THE HECK HOW DID YOU NOT HIT THE GROUND THAT ONE TIME YOU DIDNT EVEN LOOK BACK WHO DID YOU SELL YOUR SOUL TO_

_**Ruby >> **YANGS FRIEND IS GOING NOW SO I GOTTA GO WATCH BUT THAT WAS AMAZING_

Ilia stared at the text for a second. "She... She knows that it was a sprint, right?"

Blake just shrugged. "According to Ruby, she sprints for everything. Also according to her splits, she's almost faster than us, so I don't know what she's on about." It pushed another laugh out of her, and she checked the time. Right on time, her stomach growled, and she winced.

They'd had to skip breakfast to make it in time to sign in, and their original plans of getting food before their first race had been destroyed when the first text had come in and Adam decided that it was the perfect time to lecture them about distractions for half an hour. 

So she turned to Blake. "It's barely 7:30," she noted. "We can go run down and get food."

The two of them turned to the tent, and Blake sighed. 

"I think Mercury was in charge of things again," she said. "Because everyone forgot to bring anything except a bunch of bananas. You wanna just go down to Mcdonald's?"

Blake stared at the bananas piled up on the table for another second before nodding. 

"You still have the spare clothes in your car, right?"

Ilia laughed. "Yeah, duh. How else are we going to get out of here without the goatman noticing?" It prompted another smile out of Blake, which definitely didn't push her into a smile of her own.

After taking a pause to look around for a flash of red, they turned and sprinted towards Ilia's car to grab the hoodie and sweats kept in there specifically for times like that, and a minute later they were slipping off down the street to the Mcdonald's half a block down.

They made it in another two minutes. 10 minutes later, they were still there. Waiting to order. 

"It's seven in the morning," she muttered. "Why the hell are there so many people here at seven in the godsdamned morning?"

Blake just let out a tired breath in response. "I can't wait to be here until our afternoon race," she mumbled back, and Ilia pressed her hands to her head. 

"Please. Don't jinx us. I don't want to have anything to do with that pile of bananas."

* * *

Ruby bounced on the spot impatiently as Yang walked back over in her direction, and ran in a circle around her the second she made it over. 

"That was _incredible_ this is why I'm not on Beacon's team yet isn't it how do you guys even do that?"

To her credit, Yang didn't miss a beat, though maybe it wasn't that great of an achievement considering they'd grown up together and she'd had 16 years to get used to it. She just took a second to ruffle Ruby's hair, prompting an automatic groan, before pulling on a hoodie. 

"Rubes, everyone at Beacon goes the same speed as you do. You just have no endurance so any consistent pace is impressive to you."

Ruby whined. "Yeah but- it's so boring to go slow! Why can't we just do sprints all the time?"

Not even bothering to respond out loud, Yang just shook her head and laughed a little, and Ruby knew she was going to go for diversion. But it wasn't going to work! Because now she had the idea in, and she was going to convince the government -- or whoever was in charge of their events -- to take out every single long distance race and replace it _all_ with different kinds of sprints.

"So, have you seen your friends today? You can go and see if them if you want," Yang mentioned, and Ruby jumped. 

"No! Wait, you're right, I should go message them! Did you see their race? Did you? It was a perfect sprint! The best kind of race! They were so speedy!"

Whipping out her scroll, she completely missed the smirk Yang shot her way.

_**Ruby >> **ok it's done where are you? i have a few hours free!_

They always took a little longer to reply to messages, so she put the scroll back into her pocket. Sometimes, Ruby really didn't understand how people didn't feel a notification and go running, but it gave her more time to do things at the same time and not get distracted, so maybe it was for the best.

And speaking of distraction...

Yang got her again! Right after she said it wasn't going to happen! 

She spun over to glare up, and realized a few seconds later that Yang was already off again and she was looking into empty air. 

Ruby took a moment to silently grumble about getting tricked by Yang's diversion _again_ , before her scroll buzzed and she scrambled to open it.

 _ **Blake >>** we're at mcdonald's, a street down. _ _still waiting in line, be back soon._

It only took a second for Ruby to decide on her course of action. She saw Yang all the time, and Yang was probably off with her friends anyway, and they said Mcdonald's was only a street down. It shouldn't take too long! They could have a little more time, or even split off earlier if they wanted, and Ruby barely even (okay, she didn't) double check to see where the Mcdonald's was exactly before she took off.

Unsurprisingly, it proved to be a mistake. Five minutes passed, and Ruby wondered just how long "a street down" was supposed to be. 

Ten minutes after that, she began wondering if she was going in the right direction. Five minutes and a couple dozen turns later, she decided that yes, this was absolutely the wrong direction. The _real_ problem set in ten turns later, in the direction that she'd _thought_ was the way back. 

As she walked, the streets started looking less and less familiar, until she was completely sure that she'd never seen the street that she was on. Or the last one, or the next one, or any of the three streets available at the next turn.

Ruby was a lot of things. Most of those things involved her being fast, in one way or another.

So it didn't take very long for her to realize that she was lost.

Or to realize that she'd forgotten to charge her scroll the night before, and she barely managed to input her location in the map before it shut down.

* * *

It took over half an hour before Blake and Ilia were slipping into Ilia's car and making sure there was no evidence of their Mcdonald's run, and only 5 of those minutes were spent on the actual walk back. 

"Eight in the morning," Ilia groaned. "Eight in the morning, and there are that many people there. I'm taking my chances with Sun's bananas. Fuck Mcdonald's."

Blake huffed out a laugh, stepping out of the car. Ilia followed behind her, and after a moment, Blake opened her mouth to ask if they were forgetting something when Ilia asked, "Didn't Ruby say she'd be here? Has she said anything to you?"

She pulled her scroll out to check, despite knowing that there'd been no notifications and especially nothing from Ruby. "Nothing. She'd probably gotten bored and went off with her sister somewhere, though."

Ilia just hummed in response. "Send her a message just in case?" Blake flicked an ear in assent and started typing.

_**Blake >>** finally back. when are you free?_

The thing with Ruby was that she kept her notifications on, on vibrate, and had a small pocket she put her scroll in that would make it go off right against her side. And Ruby, somehow, never missed out on a message. It was relieving, in a way, knowing that she'd get a fast response no matter what, but with times like those it was more concerning than not when she just... Didn't get one.

_**Blake >>** ruby?_

When another few minutes passed without a response, she looked over and shared a concerned glance with Ilia. With a look between her and the scroll, Blake asked, "You still have her sister's number, right? She'd at least know if Ruby's okay."

Ilia nodded, silent, and turned to tap out a message. Blake stood in wait for either her scroll to buzz or for Ilia to confirm that Ruby was alright, but nothing came. Eventually, Ilia turned back over with a shake of her head. 

"No idea. Yang says she thought Ruby's been with us for the past half hour. She's coming over now so we can look."

Blake nodded and breathed out. She'd only met Ruby a month ago, but they'd talked almost constantly in that time. First to just get to know each other to prove a point to Yang, and then because she and Ilia had genuinely gotten to enjoy Ruby's company. She _cared_ about Ruby -- would care about her, even if they hadn't gotten as close as they had -- and it hurt to think about her somewhere in danger.

It didn't take very long for Yang to make it over, and as soon as she did, Ilia took control of the situation. 

"So, we can split up to cover more ground. I've got direct contact with both of you, so I can be the one going off alone."

Internally, Blake thanked her for at least thinking of some sort of plan, but Yang raised an eyebrow at her. "What, you don't trust me to go off and look for my own sister?"

"I don't trust that you can claim your senses are on par with ours," Ilia shot back, and Yang opened her mouth like she was going to argue before clicking it shut in frustration. 

"Alright," she muttered, before turning to Blake. "Guess we're paired off. Let's go, then, and find her before she gets into deeper shit."

No hesitation. The two of them split off from Ilia, and headed off to the other side of the field.

There was a chance that Ruby had just gone out with some friends and forgot her scroll. That maybe she'd just ran off out of boredom and her scroll had run out of charge, and she was messing around somewhere having fun. Still, Blake figured. It didn't hurt to go and double check. 

-

They'd been searching for almost 15 minutes, with absolutely no sign of Ruby. Blake had suggested they walk out to the streets in case she'd made her way out and explored several minutes earlier, but there was no one who'd seen her. No clue as to where she was.

But while Blake hadn't seen, heard, or picked up _any_ traces of Ruby, she'd picked up on Yang. Looking over to her, stealing glances, almost angry. Protective. The one time Blake had managed to miss a turn and almost ran into her, Yang had flinched back and made sure to keep them from touching.

Nearly a block away from the field, she caught Yang glancing over at her again, and this time, she stopped.

Yang stopped right along with her in confusion, and she gestured wordlessly for a second before finding her voice. "What's your problem with us?" She asked, before flicking her ears. "Is it these? Because I know we both do care about Ruby, and I think she's pretty cool, and I know I'm not in a position to be judging what you tell her unless it's some racist bullshit. I saw you looking at us weirdly that entire time. What problem do you have with faunus?"

Instead of the crap she'd gotten used to during her more radical days with the Fang section of Haven, though, Yang just squinted at her in confusion.

"...Racism?" She questioned. "Wait, did you think I was just racist this entire time?" 

Cue Blake's turn to be confused. "What do you mean? Why do you have such a problem with Haven in the first place, then? Or my ears?"

"I don't... Care about your ears? I mean, they move around a lot, usually when the rest of you isn't, but... Why would I care about your ears? Or any other faunus?"

"What's your beef with Haven then? If not for that?"

Yang stared at her, incredulous, before barking out a laugh. 

"Blake, half of your boathouse got together to plan how to drive a boat into my friend's body to _snap half her ribs_ , and you're asking me why I'm wary around you guys?"

Blake's ears immediately pinned back against her head, and she couldn't breathe for half a second.

"They what?"

Yang just waved her hand, already back to walking down the street for Ruby. "I mean, I know that you weren't a part of that now, but I figure it's enough to warrant some caution while talking to anyone from Haven. Hell, I'm sure you've heard the rumours of cheating that happen every single regatta."

But - Blake couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said. Was that what Adam had ended up doing? What he and his group ended up doing?

"Who did it?" 

It slipped out before she could think about it properly, and when Yang raised an eyebrow at her, she rushed out, "If you know, who planned it? Who executed it? Who did it?"

Yang rolled a shoulder back before responding. "Some kid our age, from what I know. I don't actually know all the details. Penny says he just had a hell of a lot of silver on him, for someone racing for Haven."

"Mercury," Blake muttered, as Yang's question of "Wait, why?" completely slipped by her mind.

It wasn't Adam, then. The advanced group had a lot of overlap between people, seeing as it was mainly made up of assholes, but the two sides of them rarely ever overlapped, and Mercury and Adam definitely didn't run in the same circles.

In a sense, it was a relief. It meant that Adam wasn't behind this. He hadn't hurt someone _that_ badly. 

On the other hand, though, it meant that there was a portion of their part of the team that she couldn't keep an eye on. And if they were willing to do worse than Adam...

Fuck. That was just it. 

_Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone cares about you. someone. and if you're convinced no one does, then i care about you. because you exist, and that's pretty amazing.
> 
> anyway please dont question my choices because i have no defence and have no idea why i made some of them
> 
> at this point i think it's safe to say that if you hated it why are you 11k words in (in seriousness thanks for reading and i hope you have a few good days before the year ends)


	5. Chapter 5

Yang... Bapped her shoulder.

That was the best word for it. Her shoulder was bapped. 

When she looked over, questioning, she was met with a frown, one hand still raised, ready to bap her again. 

"What?" She asked, and Yang lowered her hand before shrugging. 

"You weren't responding. I wanted an answer. Why did you want to know?"

Blake hesitated, and tried to shrug it off. Yang didn't need to know everything.

"Sometimes, you just want to know what's happening in your boathouse, you know? I don't get to hear about the rumours much."

As she said it, though, the other girl's eyebrow raised, and it tilted up even higher as Blake attempted a smile that she'd hoped portrayed honesty, though it probably just looked stupid without the overconfidence or the submission she'd gotten used to using it with. 

"I swear I'm not affiliated with them, Mercury's a jerk to everyone, especially-  _ especially _ the people outside his main group."

No answer. Just more staring, with that same, constant expression.

Finally, right when she was starting to sweat at how Yang seemed to be able to just stare at her judgmentally, she twisted around to where they'd originally been headed and flicked an ear forward. "Hey, Ruby's probably in this direction, right?"

Yang's expression turned flat into unimpressed, but she sped back up to walk at their old pace alongside Blake. 

"Would she have come here, though?" She mused. "McDonald's is in the opposite direction, and that's where you told her you were."

"Ilia said she wasn't at McDonald's, though," Blake pointed out, still internally thanking whatever part of her brain had come up with the change in subject. "So if Ruby had started walking back, and ended up passing the field entirely..."

And the eyebrow was back up. "The field that's bright, big, and has about nine huge tents and over a hundred people crowding it?"

"...Yeah?"

Yang let out a quiet chuckle. "Blake, I know my sister can be idiotic when she wants, but even she isn't  _ that _ oblivious."

It wasn't even embarrassing. Mostly funny, really. But even still, as she let out a laughing huff, Blake felt herself flushing bright red. 

"I don't know! Maybe she got excited and missed it or thought it was a soccer game or something!"

Yang just laughed under her breath and continued walking. 

"Sure, of course," she said. "Say she completely missed the field... Somehow. Where would you go after that?"

Blake glanced down to the ground and back up. "I guess we just... pick a direction and hope for the best? Two blocks every way, and if we don't hear from her then we... Uh."

"Then we have to call the authorities. Get someone who can cover the-"

Her ears flicked up a second before her head tilted up to look at Yang, who groaned and pressed a fist to her forehead. "Ground. Someone who can cover more ground. I have a car, we could've driven, I can't believe I forgot my entire car."

"Do we... Should we go back and get it?" 

Yang sighed, looked back behind them, and shook her head. "One more block. If we don't find her, then yeah, let's go get the car."

* * *

At that point, Ruby had no idea how long she'd been wandering around for, and it probably would have been easier on her to just stand still and wait. No one was answering her questions, every other person on the street brushing past her every time she tried to stop them to look for directions. 

She slumped down against the side of a building, still glancing around to see if she could spot anything that could give her a clue as to where to go to get even  _ slightly _ closer to the regatta. 

No luck.

She let out a groan, deciding to just lean against the building and rest. It wasn't worth tiring herself out before her race, if it took that long. If it had already  _ been _ that long.

When she had a moment to pause, though, the doubt started creeping in. 

Every time she'd ever gotten lost in the past, Yang had managed to swoop in and bring her home before it was too late. Every time. So  _ where was she? _ Why hadn't she come and found Ruby yet?

Did Yang even know that she was missing? 

What if she did? And she wasn't here? Did she care?

Ruby frowned and shook her head at the thought. Of course she did! It wasn't the time to be catastrophizing, even if she  _ had  _ been walking around for probably over an hour...

Not the time! Yang would  _ never  _ leave her outside and lost on purpose! She probably just didn't know that Ruby was gone yet, and would totally come look for her. Soon.

…Very, very soon. Hopefully. Ruby had not idea what time it was, and it definitely felt like she'd been wandering around for  _ forever _ , and if it was an hour, or two hours, or more, then she might've missed her race. And she didn't want to do that! She only got one race! If she missed it, that was potentially another -- well, she didn't know how long, or really anything about the process, but probably another really long time, and she  _ really wanted _ to get into Beacon.

There wasn't really anything more that she could do, though, so she just sat herself down against the wall and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And it was another long time (or not, but Ruby was  _ bad _ at being patient, she knew it, everyone knew it) before she got bored again, and then when she got bored she started wondering more about what time it was.

She leaned out to watch for the next person to walk by her, tapping them on the shoulder, and when they looked over she waved.

"Hi! What time is it?"

To her disappointment, though, they just shrugged and kept walking, and she had manners. And it was  _ definitely _ rude to follow some stranger on the streets to pester them.

So Ruby resolved to just.. Sit. Wait. And hope like hell that she was somehow close enough to the river that it hadn't been that long and Yang would show up to get her soon.

* * *

Blake's ears flicked and swiveled back before she even registered any noise, and she reached out to grab Yang's sleeve to pull her along, turning around to head back. 

"Heard something that way," she responded to Yang's questioning "Mm?", flicking her ears in explanation. "Might not be Ruby, but it sounded a lot like her."

A few seconds later, another stranger on their phone passed by, and Blake almost let out a huff of frustration before more noise came from where they'd appeared. A soft, quiet, "doot-doot, doot, doot-doot-doot," and it was...

She  _ thought _ it was Ruby's voice. It was close enough, and so with full confidence, she tightened her grip on Yang's sleeve and ran forward.

Sure enough, when they rounded the corner into the side street, a small ball of black and red sat leaning against the wall.

"Doot-doot-doot-doot, doot-doot, doot-d-doot..."

Yang stumbled forward into a run.

"Ruby!" She called out, and the little lump shot up to meet her with a force that would've terrified Blake if she hadn't seen Ruby nearly seriously injure herself several times a day before bouncing right back.

"I was so scared I was too far and you weren't gonna find me and I have  _ no idea _ where anything is, and I was thinkin' that maybe I was just gonna be out here forever and I'd have to wait for some really  _ really really _ good luck to find you or anyone and-  _ ack _ Yang I can't breathe!"

In response, Yang visibly tightened her embrace, before letting her go again.

"Of course I came to look for you," she said, quiet, and Blake tilted her ears back to at least try to give her the space to say what she wanted. "I'd walk through this entire city twice and then further if I had to."

A sniffle from Ruby, and the silence that followed had Blake scanning the streets for absolutely nothing, before her scroll buzzed.

_ Oh, shit! Right! _

With a quick glance at the message - asking her if they'd had any progress - she moved further from the two sisters and pulled up Ilia's number. 

She picked up as soon as it started ringing, and before Ilia could start speaking, she was already talking. "We found her, sorry, you can head back now."

"You- seriously? Without the car? Where was she?"

Blake looked up at the side of the street, and a groan slipped past her throat. "We're over on Oum Street. Be back... soon?"

"...That's  _ three kilometers away _ ."

"Yeah. We'll be back soon!"

" _ Blake.  _ Do I need to come pick you up?"

Almost as if on cue, there was a tug at her sleeve. A glance down revealed Ruby, who tilted her head, pointing at the phone.  _ Ilia, _ Blake mouthed, and her eyes lit up. With another tug, up near her shoulder this time, she was pulled down to about Ruby-level, who whispered, "Does she have the car?"

Wordlessly, she handed her phone over. Ruby cheerfully called out a greeting, and Blake glanced back to the alley, catching the tail end of what seemed like one hell of a big stretch. As soon as Yang's eyes slit open, she waved an arm to grab her attention, gesturing for the other girl to come over before tuning back in to Ruby's chattering about how she'd managed to walk out in the wrong direction for nearly an hour without realizing something was up. 

Finally, Ilia must have asked her about the ride, and Ruby glanced up at Blake before agreeing, loud and excited. 

Yang had reached them by then, and reached out to ruffle at her sister's hair. "Thank the lord," she joked, and Ruby swiped at the hand on her head before grinning. 

"No more walking!" she cheered. Blake grabbed her phone back before it could get dropped onto the floor, or whatever Ruby would've done to it had she forgotten about holding it. Still, though, she worried. It was good that they could get off their feet for a while, especially after how long Ruby had no doubt been walking around for, and she wanted to get back in time to catch Sun's race. But two people were easier to miss in a crowd than a car by the side of the field, and Adam had seen where Ilia had parked theirs. 

* * *

Ruby stretched as she stepped out of the car, thanking the pair - and shoving Yang a bit forward when she didn't say anything because  _ manners _ \- before grabbing her sister's arm as her stomach grumbled. 

"Yang?" she called, tugging her out of the awkward stare-down she'd been having with the other two. "Yang, I never went and got lunch."

She watched as all three of them turned to stare at her, still silent, before Yang cursed under her breath. 

"You  _ didn't _ ," she muttered, and backed away from the group, a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Alright, well, good talking to you guys, I'm getting her food, thanks again for the ride!"

The last few words were called over her shoulder as she finally turned and pulled her sister along properly, and then spun and whispered out a thanks for the unintentional excuse to get away. 

When Ruby turned to wave them goodbye again, though, she heard their names called as their heads snapped over to a tall man, dressed in the red and black of the coaches. A  _ familiar _ tall man, and her eyes widened at the wince that Ilia let slip when he reached out to grab her arm.

She was pulled away and forced to turn to watch her step, the interaction and the scary red hair man already guaranteed to be on her mind until she saw the two again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's okay to have a rough time. no one's gonna blame you for having a rough day unless they're dicks (or you hurt them, go apologize if u did i promise it's ok). you're doing amazing with what you have.
> 
> ok some notes  
> 1\. have no plot for this thats why updates just stopped  
> 2\. am probably gonna try and find a plot  
> 3\. thanks for readin :D

**Author's Note:**

> check the time. go rest your eyes if it's late, even just laying down. cut yourself some slack <3
> 
> ok i know that 3 rounds exists but i got really into this and forgot to write for that so here it is half a month early
> 
> title is temporary bc i can't think of a good one on the spot


End file.
